Interactive Marketing Association Pledges $17,500 for Huizenga School Scholarship

Travis Berger, President of SFIMA, and Andrew Dixon of SFIMA and BGT Partners, presented the check to Jade Chen, NSU’s Manager of Scholarships and Special Events for the H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship along with Sachia Persaud, MBA Student and President of the University’s American Marketing Association chapter.

On Oct. 22, the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association (SFIMA), the region’s top forum for interactive professionals, hosted its 7th Annual Nautical Networking Cruise. More than 400 guests were in attendance aboard the Biscayne Lady in Hollywood.  At the Pre-Boarding Party and press conference, the organization presented a check to the H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship for the creation of a Future Digital Leaders Scholarship.  The $17,500 pledge will establish a scholarship to be awarded to a graduate student studying entrepreneurship or marketing.  SFIMA will award the $3,500 yearly scholarship for five years.
“There are so many synergies between SFIMA and NSU, we are excited to provide business students with opportunities to become involved with South Florida’s interactive community,” said Travis Berger, president of SFIMA. Further noting, “One of SFIMA’s primary objectives is to grow and support the future leaders of South Florida’s interactive marketing industry, and this partnership with NSU will help achieve that goal.”  The Huizenga Business School is finalizing scholarship criteria with SFIMA’s Board Members and will select the first recipient of the Future Digital Leaders Scholarship in early 2011.

Posted on Monday, November 1st, 2010 at 12:19 pm in News and Upcoming Events, SharkBytes .

Travis Berger Named President of South Florida Interactive Marketing Association

Travis Berger Named President of South Florida Interactive Marketing Association
FT. LAUDERDALE, FL - June 1, 2010 – Travis Berger, Digital Sales Manager for WPTV News Channel 5, has been named President of the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association (SFIMA) for the 2010-2011 year.
SFIMA is a forum for interactive professionals, businesses and educators who are dedicated to the exchange of ideas, information, and best practices. Service on the SFIMA Board of Directors provides an opportunity to promote and advance interactive marketing education, best practices and networking for South Florida's leading interactive marketing executives and vendors.
Travis Berger is a recognized digital expert in online marketing with 6 years of online and digital experience. Currently, she is the Digital Sales Manager for WPTV News Channel 5 the NBC Affiliate News Station in West Palm Beach. Utilizing her digital background Travis leads the digital sales efforts at www.wptv.com using a holistic marketing approach coupled with TV, online, and mobile. Travis and her team effectively create online marketing strategies and campaigns for both local and national advertisers.
"Travis Berger is the perfect President to take SFIMA to the next level as a preeminent national organization as well as the most prestigious local professional association for digital marketers. Her energy and enthusiasm are the things that will inspire an entirely volunteer based organization to new heights" said Sheryl Cattell, 2003 founder of SFIMA.
In addition to her work at WPTV News Channel 5, Travis owned her own Digital Agency for 2 years working with both local and national clients such as Nest Fragrances, Continental Property Management and University of Miami to name a few. Travis was the 2009-2010 Term Vice President of SFIMA and long-time Board Member.
"I am thrilled to continue the great tradition of SFIMA and help grow the organization with the help of strong momentum carried through from Taigh White's ground breaking term. This year promises outstanding educational, revamped and reloaded networking events. Having been a part of this organization for 4 years, I have seen the wonderful opportunities SFIMA presents its members, board members and guests. In 2010-2011 I will continue that legacy and add passion, excitement, and energy. Look for remarkable programming and new networking opportunities in this coming year. SFIMA has honored me with the position of Chairperson and I am excited to bring a new perspective to board as well as our members" said Travis.
SFIMA was founded in 2003 and is one of 12 Interactive Marketing Associations in the US. It is a non-profit forum dedicated to the exchange of ideas, information and best practices to help members grow their interactive marketing activities and successes. The organization is the primary interactive marketing voice in South Florida. For more information, visit www.sfima.com.

Don’s and DO’s SEO!!

Ten Tips to Targeting!
Author- Dante A Monterverde

1) Don’t assume you will be able to optimize your site entirely on your own or believe you can just hire an SEO company down the road.
Do an analysis of your business and its major keywords. Are you going to be able to rank for highly competitive keywords on your own? Should you hire an SEO company, this decision needs to be made early in the process, not later.

2) Don’t begin your website design and development with out considering and AEO plan. Do complete a keyword analysis first and determine what kind of keyword-rich content you will need to develop in order to rank highly. Make sure your graphic designers know witch keywords are going to be targeted on each of the pates they will design – it makes it easier for them to match the overall theme of the content and keywords to the site’s design, broadening the SEO impact.

3) Don’t forget about your secondary pages. In many cases these pages can rank just as well as your main index.html page. Do spend ample time developing these pages.

4) Don’t repeat the keywords you have on your index.html < Title > tag on your secondary pages’ < Title > tags. Do spend time developing separate keyword-rich < Title > tags that match the content on the keywords you are targeting on your secondary pages.

5) Don’t list your company or domain name first in your < Title > tags. Most likely you are already ranking well for your own company or domain name. Do place your company or domain name at the end of the < Title > tag if you absolutely need it to appear in the headline within the search engine results pages (SERPs)

6) Don’t target general, highly competitive keywords. Do target keywords derivatives that get traffic and are not as competitive. It’s better to rank #3 for “blue soft widgets” than #30 for “widgets” even if the main keywords get more traffic. In the end landing the top 10 or top 5, even for less competitive keywords will generate more traffic overall.

7) Don’t forget the sitemap and making your website search engine friendly and crawlable. Do submit your website to Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer and take advantage of their resources.

8. Don’t make the mistake of driving all of your incoming links to your main index.html page. Do create a balanced link program that not only generates incoming links to your main index.html pages but also to your secondary pages. If you have useful content or tools on your secondary pages, websites will link to them.

9) Don’t Request the same anchor text on all of your incoming links, as this looks very unnatural to the search engines. Do offer anyone who wants to link back to you with a variety of anchor text. And, of course, match the anchor text with those keywords you are targeting for that specific page. If at all possible, try to stay away from getting incoming links displaying your domain name. Instead, try to get people t olinke to you with keywords and keyword phrases.

10) Don’t assume you can complete initial SEO campaign and think you’re done. Do perform regular and ongoing keyword research to make sure you are still targeting the correct keywords; perhaps there are new keywords to target? Do follow up on uyour link requests and maintain an ongoing link campaign. Do implement an analytic program and track the amount o traffic you are generating from the organic search engine listings. Are these visits leading to sales or conversions? If so, its your best interest to up your SEO efforts and ride the momentum.

There are many mistakes that webmasters and website owners make when implementing a new ongoing SEO strategy. That’s why its difficult garnering and maintaining organic listings on the major search engines. While this is only a sample of some of the more common mistakes, this list should provide you with a starting point of how to begin and what to avoid.

2008 Back to Marketing Basics!

A big welcome to “next year”! We made it through last year and here we are DAY TWO of 2008 CONGRATS!

So after blowing off the dust on my desk and cranking up my computer I decided to tackle my emails which were not many because lets face it… everyone was out too everyone except the people at Media Post and Advertising Age that is. My mailbox is crammed with predictions and trends for 2008. So crammed in fact that it is going to take me a week to get through. I did however stumble upon this quick research Brief by the Center for Media Research.

This quick survey “Top Marketing Trends for 2008” was conducted by Anderson Analytics. They surveyed 1700 MENG (Marketing Executives Networking Group) member and concluded the following key areas for 2008:

1- Marketing basics (60% "Very Important") which include specific concepts such as customer satisfaction, customer retention, segmentation, brand loyalty and ROI were of greatest interest.
2- Search Engine Optimization (42%) had relatively wide appeal, and cut across marketers in all fields.
3- "Green Marketing" (32%) was another important emerging concept and it was identified as the trendiest marketing buzzword.

To read the complete PDF report, please visit Anderson Analytics here.Hope you enjoyed this quick post. As always feel free to comment.

2008 Marketing Predictions and Trends

It’s the day after my Christmas Holiday, and four days left in what I am calling “2007 the year of uncertainty”. Why uncertainty, do you ask? Well… something happened in 2007 that no one predicted to have SUCH an impact on our national economy. Actually many people predicted but no one really understood how many companies were going to be affected. The housing bubble burst (or bursting perhaps) single handedly changed how we as marketers or sales people handle our accounts, manage our own lives, and predict the future 2008. So uncertainty, yes… 2007 was a transitional year, one that we all made it through… some of us unscathed…some not. Here in these last four days left until the New Year we are all sitting and wondering, what will 2008 bring? What can I be certain about in this year to come? What in the world can I count on? I am here to tell you that in this crazy marketing industry that we live and breath every day…this treacherous new ground… here and now and continuing through 2008, nothing is as certain as uncertainty. So all of you out there, rest assured that you can count one thing in this New Year: “2008 will be the year of Change!” Embrace it, for it will define you!

2008 Trends to Watch
Everyone has their predictions for 2008, we can see obvious trends and plan a bit for our future. But no one has a crystal ball and no one can tell us which basket to put our eggs in. It is with that sentiment in mind that I review some of the predicted trends set forth by Advertising Age (December 17th, 2007).

First Trend (and the most GLARING): All marketers will hit a rough patch due to politics and economy. We all know the reasons, fuel prices are high, attaining crash (or credit has surpassed giving up your first-born child and of course, the housing market crashing). Needless to say money will be reigned in tight across all traditional mediums.
My Solution: Alternative media will be where marketers will spend. In this case I mean online. If you are a marketer out there, get online and start capitalizing on free traffic.

Second Trend: This one is a theme among Ad-Age’s trends. Accountability. Marketers will want to see results from their marketing, be it online, TV, etc. If the marketing efforts are not working they will pull their dollars. Moreover, more marketers will shift to performance-based marketing. Enhancements in tracking capabilities will allow for marketers to demand accountability, this will in turn affect how compensation models evolve. Be prepared to work on an incentive base.

Third Trend: you guessed it. DIGITAL! I am going to quote directly here: “Digital offers richness in information management, communication delivery, metrics-and portability. IE the iPhone! The challenge: Are marketers skilled enough to take advantage of this rapidly changing landscape? Queue the swarming vultures. Here is where we capitalize on that lack of skill and show them how to manage their online efforts!

Forth Trend: Renaissance Marketer. I know a gentleman who is successful beyond imagination, he told me one day that he has 4 masters, 3 relating to business and finance, and one in Psychology. Guess which masters he uses the most; nope… it’s the Psychology one! He inevitably made me fee better about my BS in Psychology. “Market research will embrace scientific approaches that literally tap consumers brains to learn how they neurologically respond to commercial messages and make brand choices.” How do we respond to this change? By being a renaissance marketer. We need to embrace these changes by utilizing the power of our minds. No longer will we rely on Cookie Cutter marketing solutions… we will need to think out of the box and quickly. “ We will be part humanist, part psychologist, part anthropologists, and part technologist. This includes the need to be socially responsible and to embrace key trends such as “green”.

Fifth and Final Trend: Strategic Alignment. It is always nice to have a major publication validate what you have been thinking and predicting. In this case I mean myself. Again I am going to quote directly from Ad-Age for the element of conviction. “ Marketers succeed when brand messages are fully integrated and synchronized across all media channels. That requires strategic alignment-leadership that ties everything together-particularly when the forces of change can potentially pull them apart. Lead agencies will be appointed to make sure all supporting agencies carry out the same brand messages!

And there you have it… ß- taking a bow. The 2008 Trends to watch out for! Please share with your friend, read between the lines, and always feel free to comment!

Happy 2008! The year of CHANGE! COUNT ON IT!

Who's Numbers Do we Trust?

This is a great article by the NYT's.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/technology/22click.html?ex=1350792000&en=8ab263b2d0b0eb97&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Ad Spending: don’t be shortsighted!

I recently read an article in REUTERS regarding ad budgets and expenditure. We all know that the online ad spending is projected to grow exponentially year after year. However the big question is will that budget be enough to support sites that are banking on selling their ad space to support their company? Is the alternative a subscription based model? Bottom line… will there be enough to go around?

Yes and here is why. Because local small to medium size businesses will begin to shift their ad dollars onto local websites. Companies that are not even online themselves will be doing this. Even with the advent of geo and behavioral targeting thanks to companies like Double Click and Dotomi, local business will simply not be able to afford this. Instead they will be looking to smaller local websites to play vehicle for their messaging. Build a kick butt local site that locals want, and you have your ad support.

But there is another side of this story. Although I do agree with the comment “there is not going to be enough advertising dollars in that marketplace [ad supported] no matter how clever we are, no matter what the format is.” Maybe because of my role as a local web strategist I see the world a bit differently. I think there is money, I just think we have to redefine what advertising budget consists of.

I think we get used to being in the online world and forget that many companies still have not tapped into this market. Not only does that mean that they will be allocating ad dollars to online, but they will need help catching up to everyone else in this space. That means building out a website in some cases. Easier said than done. Simply put these companies need someone to guide them. Here is where my definition takes a different route. Advertising is not limited to IAB ads, email campaigns, and content integration; it expands into web development, SEO, and best practices. There is a market for this… you just have to be in the right business. Instead of building it so they will come… try helping them build it and see what kind of cash is out there.